1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a digital camera having a viewfinder with an adjustable length.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, the size of an electronic apparatus depends on the number and the sizes of electronic elements of the electronic apparatus. With the advance in semiconductor technology, the sizes of electronic elements are reduced greatly. Therefore, the size of the electronic element is no longer one of the important factors regarding the size of an electronic apparatus. One of the important factors limiting the size of the electronic apparatus resides in the hardware structure of the electronic apparatus.
Taking a digital camera as an example, since the internal electronic elements of the digital camera can be made very small, the volume of the current digital camera is far smaller than that of the early digital camera. However, one of the important factors limiting the size of the digital camera resides in the length of the viewfinder. The viewfinder is provided for users to view the image acquired by the digital camera. According to the principle of optical imaging, the length of the viewfinder must be within a predetermined range. Consequently, the factor of the viewfinder length limiting the size of the digital camera is greater than the factor of the sizes of the electronic elements limiting the size of the digital camera.
As for the factor of the viewfinder length limiting the size of the digital camera, a method of changing the appearance of the digital camera has been disclosed to solve the problem. In other words, the digital camera is designed so that the viewfinder length is greater than the thickness of the camera body. Using such a design, however, the appearance of the digital camera may be influenced. Furthermore, it is inconvenient for users when carrying the digital camera, and the projecting viewfinder may be easily damaged.
In addition, in order to solve the problem of the viewfinder length limiting the size of the digital camera, it is possible to change the viewfinder to a liquid crystal screen. Although the viewfinder length can be decreased using the liquid crystal screen as a viewfinder, the manufacturing cost of the digital camera having the liquid crystal screen is increased because the liquid crystal screen is expensive.
To sum up, it is important to design a viewfinder capable of decreasing the thickness of the digital camera as well as costing less than the digital camera using a liquid crystal screen as a viewfinder.